“I would like to slow this down for a moment and watch you as you sit there, wonderfully oblivious to me, for hours, days … forever, but I can’t. Overwhelmed I look down at my notebook, coming down hard from this most potent of highs. I have been drunk on your love and now: the most delicious of hangovers begins.” A short novel by La Serpent.
Longing is something I can usually regulate, but not tonight. Then again I have been waiting on you here for a long time — weeks, months, years. On the bedside table there’s an ashtray — look, it’s almost full.
This is where together; we will finally gentrify our morals, feasting on each other as if all we’ve known is famine. Soft light will emanate from scented candles around the room, highlighting your exquisite contours as I remove my trousers on a nearby armchair to the sound of Misirlou by Martin Denny playing from the stereo by the bed. Sufficiently charmed I begin tossing myself off while you playfully wet yourself in the centre of the room. This is what I wanted when I followed you around the supermarket for so long that I ran out of space in my basket and almost considered transferring everything to a trolley so I could continue, at the bar when I stood next to you as you paid, on the train when you showed a morbid curiosity in my crotch.
That’s the first time I recall seeing you, or at least that version of you — a pseudo-you. Sleep deprived I held onto the bar above my head, swinging from side to side with the motion of the train like a wild ape in the bush. Fearing that my primitive self would overwhelm us both I kept one hand in my pocket as you sat in the seat below me staring into your phone. Perspiring I became acutely aware not of my own stench but of the most intoxicating one between your legs — the first throb of spring had brought with it milder weather and the train carriage was warmer than usual. At Schönleinstraße a seat beside you became free and just as I was about to remove my hand from the bar above me and sit next to you I noticed you staring at my jeans — needless to say I stayed where I was. Combining a flick of the hair with the faintest of smiles you then looked up into my eyes before returning them to the gentle bulge front and centre, sending a bolt of ecstasy shooting through me from stem to sternum as the train came to a stop on the platform. But that’s where it ended, at Hermannplatz — seconds later the train penetrated the nearby tunnel while I stood on the platform, dissolving into my own inertia. At that moment you were absolutely without an equal, but later that afternoon, as I gave myself the usual treatment in one of the bathroom stalls at work, I could barely remember what you looked like.
The scented candles smell like your marvellous cunt — curiously your nostrils flare up while I untie your shoelaces with my teeth near the bed. Predicting correctly that I would devour your tongue you scraped it clean this afternoon until it bled, producing the second most seductive of bodily fluids. Submerged in the bath you then scrubbed yourself with soap until the water was almost cold before realising that no matter how hard you try the one thing you can never clean is your mind. Promptly I begin licking your wounds clean while you unclip your bra as we face each other on our knees. The smell from the candles becomes stronger and it’s then that you realise what it reminds you of as with my middle finger I enter you for the first time.
Later I emerge from between your legs and crawling up to your face I drown in your sweet, sickly saliva — a pretty potion that contrasts the caustic character of your cunt where I then suffocate inside of for what feels all at once short-lived and like a relentless eternity. It’s here — moving between your malleable walls as they contract in and out like a pair of lungs — that I finally feel safe.
Stuffing your still sodden underwear into my mouth before you leave days later I stand there gagged, unable to ask your name as the door shuts behind you, the room still haunted by the smell of your shampoo. Standing by the window I wait for your figure to appear on the street below, where moments later I observe you as your footsteps follow behind you in the snow. A group of underage yobs sat on a bench next to the square appear to whistle at you like a dog. One of them then stands up and sticks his tongue out through the catapult in his fingers while you disappear around the corner, but all I can do is bark at them from the window. Had I been by your side I would have no doubt bit them.
But it never got that far. Perpetually held captive by reality I look up from my notebook, disappointed. Then again, these feelings for you are only a first draft. The café is getting busier; it’s almost midday. Seated at a table opposite mine I look over at you in all your splendour. Silk-textured your hair is tied back in a ponytail. You’re wearing a green cardigan with daisies on. You haven’t noticed me yet; in fact I’m invisible. I pick up the pen again. Your mouth will taste like hot fruit and my ice cream will melt inside you. Your neck: like alcohol. The material of your cardigan will tickle my nose as I press my face into your bosom. Pausing a moment I scratch my nose and apologise before continuing. Opening your cardigan I pull up your cropped black string vest and press my face into your belly, suddenly getting hard. Nevertheless, I’m almost surprised by this reaction. Looking up at you my eyes are now like a kaleidoscope as you start to fall under my spell (I have long fallen under yours). Sat comfortably in the chair your hand holds onto the back of my neck while the other rests on the windowsill that’s damp with condensation. Outside the window to your left you check to see if anybody is watching but they’re not, unless you want them to be. When I reach your cunt I unzip my flies and take out my cock and I already feel the pre-ejaculate on the tip. Taking my hand you put my fingers in your mouth to taste it. I don’t have to remove the black trousers you’re wearing because you’re not wearing any, only black panties that match the colour of my dilated pupils. Adrenaline courses through my veins and if you were to look closely my arms as they squeeze your breasts like a balloon you would notice the veins pumping and swollen.
To my right a woman gets up from her chair and the sound it makes against the wooden floor is horribly distracting. She walks between our tables and outside but as she does you remain staring into your laptop screen. Am I really here? Bringing the ceramic cup to your mouth you uncross your legs and drink whatever is inside without taking your eyes off the screen in front of you, spreading your legs for spread sheets. Are you supposed to be working from home? The hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. Dancing in your chair I wonder what music you’re listening to. You’re dancing discreetly, but you can dance with abandon if you like, which is just how I hope you’ll screw.
I would like to slow this down for a moment and watch you as you sit there, wonderfully oblivious to me, for hours, days … forever, but I can’t. Overwhelmed I look down at my notebook, coming down hard from this most potent of highs. I have been drunk on your love and now: the most delicious of hangovers begins.